


Entangled

by Hebi_Grin



Series: This is not a proper use of the phrase "Butterfly Effect" [2]
Category: Gintama
Genre: Angst, Angst and Feels, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Blood, Cultural References, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Explicit Sexual Content, Fight Scene, Gintoki Sakata - Freeform, Hurt/Comfort, Implied Sub/Dom relationship, Joui is Not Joy, Letters, M/M, Mild Language, Nightmares, PTSD, Pillow Talk, Pre-Series, Rough Kissing, Rough Sex, Self-translation, Sensory Deprivation, Smoking After Sex, TakaZura - Freeform, Trying to Cope, Undertoned S&M, Unfocused sex, Zura!PoV, a lot of blood, after sex - Freeform, angsty sex, but well you know it couldn't last, guess who is the sadist, guess who is unfocused, implied PTSD, kinda snuggling in bed for a while, more like pillow bickering, post-joui war, traumatic events, yoshida shouyou - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-12
Updated: 2019-01-26
Packaged: 2019-09-16 23:37:31
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,095
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16963644
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hebi_Grin/pseuds/Hebi_Grin
Summary: "He gently touched his scar through the cloth with his fingertips, in a soft and intimate gesture, calling to mind the harrowing squall that had anticipated –anticipated, not followed– the moment in which his friend's emerald iris was closed forever and small teardrops appeared in the corner of his eyes."





	1. Part 1

**Author's Note:**

> Set something like one year after the end of the Joui war. Presuming the leaders of the two most important groups of ~~terrorists~~ patriots met and licked their still open wounds each other. This obviously included sex too. 
> 
> Anyway, this is the translation (more or less, I've made some minor changes) of the first (followed by the second) part (that could be considered self-contained) of one of my fics.  
>   
> Anyway it changes a bit the meaning of the original, in which the title 'Entangled' was referred to Katsura's mind stuck (because of a dissociation episode – thus explicitly included PTSD, while here if so is veiled) to a nightmare/flashback of the last day of war he has when he falls asleep after he wakes up. Here has just the minor, more positive, meaning.  
> English is not my first language and this is not beta'd, so... Feel free to tell me if you find mistakes.  
>  ~~Enjoui!~~ Enjoy!

Katsura could distinguish the features of Takasugi's face above his through the dim and flickering reddish light of the lantern. His mouth was ajar and wheezy, a drop of sweat had run from the cheekbone to the jaw, the bandages on his left eye were loosened and the hem of them lightly touched his shoulder.  
  
_Maybe later he would adjust them._  
  
He knew Shinsuke's injury had healed for a while, at least physically, and he could do without the nuisance of wearing them. Still, Katsura understood why he didn't.  
  
_'A symbol of the still dripping wound in his soul, a memento, a pledge, a snowy funeral drape.'_  
  
He gently touched his scar through the cloth with his fingertips, in a soft and intimate gesture, calling to mind the harrowing squall that had anticipated – anticipated, not followed – the moment in which his friend's emerald iris was closed forever and small teardrops appeared in the corner of his eyes.  
A tuft of hair moisten by the sweat covered Katsura's view on the other pupil, and he tenderly moved it aside meeting his gaze, which seemed to sparkle not only with the reflected light.  
  
_'Arousal, anger, or both?'_  
  
"Don't get distracted, Zura."  
' _Both_ ', he decided judging by the other's the fierce tone just a moment before he deeply sank his fangs into Kotarou's lower lip, smothering a moan of pleasure caused by another, sturdy, thrust.  
The taste of his own blood blended with the saliva of both of them and the reek of the expensive tobacco smoked by Shinsuke, who now was kissing him in urgency and despair.  
  
_Kotarou loved and hated all that at the same time._  
  
"I'm not Zura, I'm Katsura," he specified when he caught his breath again after their lips had parted. He grabbed himself to his own name as he was doing to the other's arms.  
Takasugi had stopped and collected his tears with the knuckle of his index finger, but he was inspecting him, inquiring and stern as if he would want to read his mind.  
  
_And maybe now that he laid his body naked and his soul bare, he really could._  
  
Katsura couldn't know for sure, but he swallowed anyway.  
  
Takasugi slowly traced the other's carotid with his pointer finger and the throat with the thumb, stroking up and down, too vigorously to call it a caress.  
Repeatedly Shinsuke had proved him to have become unpredictable, unstable, destructive, able to nonchalantly alternate – or even overlap – affectionate and coarse words or deeds.  
The bruises he often had left on his skin in moments like those and that carefully Kotarou veiled under his clothing were tangible evidence.  
Every time he saw them, he asked himself why he did allow it, yet he had never blocked him: he offered his comprehension and his own body to help the friend to soothe his suffering – and Katsura forget his own for a while – leaving him the control with the unwavering conviction he could stop him and regain supremacy if ever things became too dangerous.  
He didn't stop him, still, if he would apply more strength it could be unsafe, and Kotarou would take the upper hand even if that meant to be him to really wound his comrade.  
This awareness made him shudder, but he persuaded himself it was because of a gust of wind on his perspiring skin, which had existed only in his imagination.  
"Well, as you wish. Katsura. Focus on me. No mind-wandering."  
' _I am focused on you!_ ', the voice in his head screeched while he squeezed the other's biceps as if he wanted to sink his fingers into them. He wished to leave a tangible and real sign to witness his existence and his passage on his body, too.  
Katsura moved the legs wrapped around his comrade's waist and rolled his hips, spurring him to start moving again so that he could be induced to forget to think.  
"I mean," Takasugi clarified accepting the invitation while one of his hands was roughly taking Kotarou's jaw and the other one was intertwining to his long, silky tresses – _oh, he could be that sour and sweet at the same time_ – "I'd rather have you feel me than looking at me, if looking makes you overthink."  
  
_As if he really had read his mind._  
  
Katsura closed his eyes and instinctively brought his left hand to the mouth to force himself staying as much soundless as possible. The other hand's fingers clenched Shinsuke's skin beneath, clawing at his arms, leaving reddish scratches he hoped would stay for some days.  
"And let me hear you is part of allowing me to feel you," Takasugi growled against his ear. The moment after, he had vehemently clenched Kotarou's left wrist and forced it to stillness, wrapped by his fingers and pressed by the weight he loaded on it. Katsura whimpered.  
  
_The morrow he would have to deal with that bruise, too._  
  
"Yeah, way better." Takasugi chuckled.  
Katsura perceived his deep voice and his gasps like a buzz in the ears, a distant sound blended to the slapping noise of their bodies when they met, rhythm uneven, chaotic, frenzy.  
Kotarou echoed with throaty noises and whispered or high pitched whining and moan, allowing him to hear as he was when he was feeling him, completely lost in the moment, still focused and steadily held on it.  
His right hand slipped from Shinsuke's arm to his nape, the fingers sank through his sweaty hair and he arched his back towards him, who was looking at him with an expression more suitable to a ravenous beast before his prey than a man.  
"Shinsuke," he hardly murmured against his lips, kissing him with the same insolence and thinly concealed sorrow the other had addressed him before.  
Katsura felt his wrist being freed from the grip and his fingers entangled by Shinsuke's, while Kotarou's were pins and needles for the long insufficient blood flow. The kiss became slower and less rough according to the pace imposed by Takasugi.  
He felt a pleasant heat inside himself, all the other's body stiffening and his choked moan.  
For just a single moment, through the half-closed eyes and blurred vision from previous satisfaction, he saw him raising a peaceful smile before hiding his face in the curve of Kotaou's shoulder and all the body against his, holding their fingers intertwined until their breaths and heartbeats were even again.  
  
_For now, the beast was tamed._  


 

*

  
  
  
Kotarou caressed his friend's back for a long time, rising to the shoulders, the nape, and finally his hair before he carefully took between his fingers a hem of the bandages and began unwrapping them.  
"What the heck are you doing?" Takasugi rasped, ablaze.  
Shinsuke had raised his head, widening the eye and seemed enraged, but in the sudden stiffening of the body and the almost high-pitched notes his generally dark voice had hit, Katsura recognised discomfort, aversion, the defensive attitude towards what touched on that nerve.  
"I'm adjusting them. They were loosening," he quietly answered, placing a hand on his cheek in the attempt to instil a sense of safety in the gesture. "May I?"  
 _Trust me, Shinsuke_ , he thought in a silent plea the other couldn't ear, but maybe understand.  
He observed him carefully and carried on only when he felt the comrade relaxing under his touch.  
  
Another Takasugi's shudder made him stop at the last turn of the cloth, that would have revealed the injury.  
Katsura raised a smile, gently putting a hand on the eye to secure them and then enfolded them again, the scar uncovered.  
"Done," he informed in the end, delicately touching his face one more time and letting him move and lay on his side, the forehead against his shoulder and a hand over the chest without a single word being said.  
  
  
  
  
  
*

  
  
  
  
"Could you please avoid smoking in bed?" Kotarou muttered, drowsy.  
His view was impeded by the forearm wearily dropped above his eyes, but he had felt Shinsuke departing from him, heard the rustle of his yukata while he was wearing it, a saucer put on the tatami as an improvised ashtray and the striking of a match after the weight of his body had returned on the mattress. The characteristic smell of the tobacco was an unnecessary confirmation.  
"Why should I?"  
"Because it's untimely."  
"On the contrary, I think this is the best time to do it." Takasugi rebutted.  
Katsura huffed, extending his arm from his face and reaching his discarded juban tossed on the tatami.  
He sat and wore it, securing it with the datejime before he languidly fell again on the futon.  
"What a cliché. You know it's not what I meant." His voice was sluggish, eyes shut didn't impede him to perceive Shinsuke's gaze on his face.  
"It's still not a cliché as much as you looking like a total wreck every time after we make sex. I mean, if I'd like to make it again, this attitude of yours would make it dissatisfying. Now smoking is far more attractive than you."  
"Don –... Don't say such embarrassing things, Takasugi!" He bubbled widening his eyes, cheeks reddening. "It's a physical result, definitely not a cliché! And it has been a very hard day. Stop smoking and saying lewd indecencies like that!"  
"You don't seem to be in a position to compel me to do or not anything," he said blowing the smoke.

  
_A middle way between irony and an observation._

  
Kotarou laughed hysterically, without a shred of amusement.  
"I wouldn't anyway, considering you've decided to destroy everything starting right from your own health! I pray for you it won't collapse before the Bakufu since I'm pretty sure you don't care about praying the deities."  
"I thought you disguised yourself as a monk to play cat and mouse with the police, not that it had become such a serious thing. So, when did you take vows? I mean, haven't we just committed a blasphemy, did we?"  
"Don't be foolish, Takasugi... And I'm absolutely sure you wouldn't really put such issues anyway. You and blasphemy would go hand in hand. Two hearts and a hut, as they say."  
"You know, sometimes beasts can be impious," he said suggestively, inhaling longer than usual before he put down the kiseru on the saucer.  
Katsura understood from his smirk he had something in his mind and alerted the senses, but before he could react a Shinsuke's hand was on his eyes and his view covered, depriving him of the possibility to see what he meant to do.  
"Taka–" He thundered when his comrade hushed him taking advantage of his agape lips to kiss him, blowing the smoke into his mouth.  
Kotarou tried to wriggle out and push him away refusing that contact – yet craving it, kissing him back –, but Shinsuke held him still having him by his neck, getting a frustrated moan after the another from his throat.  
Wispy curls of smoke left their lips when finally Takasugi parted them with a burst of unwholesome laughter and Katsura coughed breathless, more than usual, a bitter unpleasant taste in his mouth.  
"Undoubtedly you're the only beast who smokes," Kotarou observed, incensed by the previous deed, coughing once more.  
"For somebody who asserts so resolutely he doesn't have one, you seem to talk more like an expert. I'm fine with being unique of my kind."  
"I know..." He mumbled seconds later as if he had been thinking through or forgot to speak.  
Takasugi didn't answer and Katsura drifted off to sleep.

 

 


	2. Part 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is about a nightmare Zura has, where he relives the last hours of war and who the Naraku caught Shinsuke and him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the non-TakaZura part of the fic, unless you squint and decide to give that interpretation. 
> 
> It's also the reason for which the rating not is not M anymore, but E. Because there is violence, and blood, and all those things you can find on a battlefield. 
> 
> It has been pretty complicated to translate it, I hope it is all cleare, even if surely there are mistakes. 
> 
> Here I tried to use the English punctuation. 
> 
> One day, I'll write appropriate notes for the cultural references here.

The rain was impetuously and incessantly rashing over Shinsuke and Kotarou, the only survivors of the just ended battle. Sakamoto had left the war for some months now, chasing his dream among the stars and Gintoki had arbitrarily decided - against Katsura’s opinion - to manage alone the most dangerous front and leave the rear to them.

_ He always did his own thing. _

Apparently, however, it was the two of them who faced most of the enemy forces in what was revealed to be an ambush.

They were walking through the battlefield, the bodies on the ground now become empty soulless shells, both friends’ and enemies’, whose blood was now mixed with water and muddy ground.

Around them there was only a wide bare land that no longer offered any shelter from the rain, after that area had been bombed by the powerful Amanto cannons, erasing from the face of the Earth a centuries-old forest of oaks and caves which now would have been extremely useful.

They could not do anything but move forward, dragging their heavy bodies through the fatigue and wounds of the exhausting battle - of the exhausting _battles_ that had accumulated - with the clothes now soaked with water clinging to the body that had now become more an impediment and a vector for the cold that a protection against it.

The flashes that were reflected in their eyes, blank and fixed in front of them, would seem the only sparks of life that caught them. The vision of death now appeared to them everywhere.

Their feet sank and slid in the mud; several times they had found themselves face down on the ground or in a puddle. Each time they had helped each other to get up again and had carried on even more sacked, aching, exhausted and cold than before, holding each other's backs or using their own katana as a stick to which support themselves.

They just had to hope to get to the base camp with no more injuries than they already had. At this rate, they could perhaps hope to arrive just before dawn. The sun had set just recently, but the sky covered by the clouds of the storm made the environment so dark as to make it seem like it was already late at night.

Katsura felt a foot sink into something indefinite, partly soft and slimy and partly hard, perceiving it wet by something _hot_. He swallowed, hoping it was a puddle but with the dreadful feeling to know it was something else.

A flash of lightning at that moment illuminated the landscape, giving him confirmation of what he hoped not to see.

He withdrew his blood-soaked foot from the rain, dragging part of the intestine of his comrade’s stuck to the sole and brought a hand to his mouth to suppress a gag, feeling the tears to his eyes for the guilt of having trampled his body.

"Takasugi..." He broke off, coughing and moving away from the corpse, while the other turned to him. "Wait".

"What's up?".

"Shouldn’t we bury them?"

"Are you stupid or what? Do you realize the shitty situation we’re in? "

Kotarou looked at him sadly for a moment. Certainly, Shinsuke could hardly be said to be delicate, but disastrous battles like the one just ended could make him even vulgar and the nervousness shone through the tone of his voice that had reached shrill notes.

"I realize it, but..."

"No 'But', Zura. If we waste time we ’ll be the dead ones here without a grave."

Katsura remained silent and did not correct him.

"Come on, great general." Shinsuke had grabbed him by the left wrist, pulling him as he began to walk to urge him to move.

"You remember who you are, don’t you? The general. Not a damned gravedigger or a useless monk. Burying the dead is not the priority when our lives are at stake".

_He was right_. If the reinforcements of the Bakufu or Amanto army had arrived they might not have got away with it a second time, yet Katsura could not help but think of the carnage of men he had not been able to protect that they were leaving behind.

"It's not your fault. We couldn’t know it."

Kotarou did not know if the friend had understood what he was thinking or if it was a coincidence.

"No, we could not know..." he replied monotonously and Shinsuke glanced at him just as another thunderbolt stood out in the sky followed by a long, mighty rumble.

Katsura still had other people to protect and one was by his side, and he swore to the shining flash, he would not fail.

"Speed up, Zura."

"I'm not Zura," he began assuming a proud tone and erecting the bust as if that vote had been thrown behind the uncertainty, guilt and hesitation of a moment before, "I'm the general."

Takasugi grinned satisfied and accelerated the pace.

 

*

 

"Takasugi, do you think Gintoki’s already returned to the camp? I'm a bit worried about him."

"That idiot’s surely already returned and is telling his deeds around the fire. If we arrive alive, the first thing I’ll do is kick his ass and put me in his place near it. "

"Don’t talk like that, Takasugi!" He scolded him.

Katsura heard him grinning.

"Don’t worry, that fool spreads so much his legs when he sits down that I’ll have gained enough room for you too, Zura."

“I meant to say that there’ll certainly be room for all three close to the fire! I’m sure that if we ask Gintoki to kindly make room for us, he’ll understand the situation. And it's not Zura. "

A gust of icy wind made them both shudder, even enough to distract him from the intention of continuing the correction.

The sky had soothed his fury for the moment, and the clouds had partly thinned out.

Now the two young samurai were finally allowed to have the moon to light the path to the field which, by Katsura’s reckoning, continuing at the same pace was two hours away.

They both continued clutching their arms, trembling from the cold that had penetrated into their bones.

Katsura advanced one step after another, looking absently at the ground on which he set his feet, formulating thoughts that he dared not to reveal.

The human losses of their last battle were around eighty units, which added to the victims that surely there had been between the ranks that had followed Gintoki and the victims who had already fallen during the war years, though without counting the wounded - those who could no longer walk, hold a sword or see, and there were many - were about two thousand dead. And so many families who mourn them, and for which Kotarou had decreed and sworn on his honour of samurai who, at any cost, would not have made their sacrifice vain.

But now the men who could still fight were a small number: in this account, the wounded had to be considered in subtraction.

The forces of the rebel army were on their last legs, and it was a matter of fact. Pure arithmetic.

He glanced quickly at Takasugi, discreetly and without being noticed.

_ And then, Shouyou-sensei... _

If the three pupils had gone to war to save their master, Katsura had understood long ago that Shinsuke would come down in all sixteen Naraka, more than Katsura and perhaps even Gintoki, to free him. And he hoped he would not come down anyway if, instead, they failed in the attempt.

They had never been able to often receive letters from the sensei from the prison, and each was written on a makeshift sheet, which lately on the other side had timid and childish writing attempts - was the sensei teaching someone to write in prison? It would have been actually like him - always in elegant characters and sent probably after having ingratiated himself to a jailer.

Katsura kept them, in the book from which Shouyou had taught them, always on his chest under his armour.

He could recite each of them by heart, so many were the times he had reread them.

Yet the last one, arrived the week before with the usual delay, had particularly struck him. His content had given him a tremendous feeling of anguish, to the point of even considering hiding its existence from the two friends, and revealing it only after a few hours of doubt in fear that they would do reckless actions.

  
  


_ "Dear students, _

_ As Kobayashi Issa wrote, _

 

_ 'Ours is a world of suffering _

_ even if cherry-flowers bloom '. _

 

_ Although it is autumn, I prefer to leave you, my beloved students, with the thought of the life that is born, rather than the leaves that are preparing to fall to the ground. _

_ I'm fine. I hear rumours of the last companies you have made. As a teacher, I am proud of the samurai you have become and will continue to be. _

_ I can not, however, do without worrying about you. Please be careful and cherish your lives as much as I do. Gintoki, Shinsuke, I refer above all to you two. Kotarou, I'm sure you are doing your best to stop them from doing inane deeds: keep it up. _

_ Gintoki, I have not forgotten it is your birthday. I wish you all the best, even if I fear you will receive them late. Please give me the gift of remembering our promise. _

_ I greet you, reminding you that ' When misfortune occurs, the samurai must rejoice and go forward with courage: when the waters rise, the boat does the same'. _

 

_ Sincerely, _

_ Yoshida Shouyou _

 

_ 10 October " _

  
He heard ravens croaking and a strange, indecipherable sense of anticipation of Takasugi's voice for a moment, interrupting the flow of Katsura's thoughts.

_ 'Crows at night?' _

"Oi, Zura... Are those monks?" He had said, squeezing his eyes in the shadows of night.

Kotarou looked up immediately, sensing the danger and looked around, realizing with horror that they had been surrounded, in complete silence, as if they had appeared from nowhere.

_ No escape, if they had the strength to escape. And they probably did not have enough to fight everyone. _

Instinctively, as the battles had taught them, they positioned themselves back to back and pulled out their sword, brandishing it while waiting for the enemies to make the first move.

“Takasugi, they could be those who…”

"It seems so," Shinsuke said hurriedly.

_ 'Those who took Shouyou-sensei away from us'. _

_ This being the case, the percentage of chances of winning decreased drastically. _

" _The spirit with which a man is defeated is the same with which he defeats ten million,_ isn’t it?" Katsura said, in an attempt to encourage both in the face of the desperate situation.

"You're the only idiot who can quote Musashi at a time like that."

"I'm not the only idiot, you're the one who recognized the quote in spite of everything."

The shakujou rings rang as the first wave of opponents approached.

_ They were the insects, and the tinkling warned them that if they were crushed the fault was to be blamed solely on themselves. _

The young samurai gathered their forces to counteract the attack, separated their backs launching a cry of war on each of the opponents he faced, certain that the other took care of those behind him.

The katana swung, and with clean and precise cuts fell the first wave, hitting the last man at the same time as their shoulders quivered with adrenaline came back to touch and approached the second enemy charge.

"Are you okay, Takasugi?"

"Don’t worry."

They parted again, and Katsura cut off the weapons of the first three, now within reach of the sword, which he eliminated by tearing their chests in one stroke.

One jumped over his head from their shoulders, directed behind his.

He took half a turn on himself and sank the katana in his diaphragm, turning back to the others without his eyes seeing Shinsuke.

One hit him with his stick to his jaw, making him feel the taste of blood before he even felt the pain, forgotten by the high adrenaline rush in the delirium of combat.

With his left hand, he grabbed the weapon that had struck him and kicked up to push it sideways, shifting the centre of gravity.

The opponent fell to the ground, and the Noble of Fury kicked him in the face.

He passively recorded the sound of the nasal septum breaking against his foot, while he spat a blood clot and saliva caused by the blow just moments before.

_ 'In war...' _

A moment later, he cut the skull of another, shredding parts of his brain.

' _... there’s not always...'_

He dodged a stroke and moved to the right and opened the abdomen to the umpteenth man, whose intestine and stomach were now leaking out.

_ '... time to be clean'. _

It was one thing he had to come to terms with and deal with it. The rain that was now falling again against the sunrise, making the ground more slippery, would wash everything.

Katsura beheaded another Naraku, but a stream of blood shot up to his face forcing him to close his eyelids and uncover his side.

Another took advantage of the situation and struck with the shakujou on the open flank, which Kotarou promptly and blindly grabbed with his left breaking it with a sword stroke.

Another one aimed his feet, but he opened his eyes and avoided it by jumping with a leap forward, and stabbed the heart of the man who had hit him.

Turning around, he charged one who had meanwhile reached him behind.

For a moment Katsura saw Takasugi equally in trouble managing the numerical superiority of the monks - were they really monks? - when he was overpowered by ten of them and fell back to the ground to the ground soaked.

The metallic parts of their sticks were aimed to his throat and the hand that held the katana, preventing him from using it.

_ They did not seem to want to kill him right now, and this could be even worse. _

Now still, adrenaline began to fall and the pain to be felt along with the cold.

The mud crept into his hair and clothes, making the body heavier, the muscles began twitching and breathing was getting harder and harder.

The disadvantaged position allowed him to see an Amanto military airship in the sky landing.

"Shinsuke, run away!" He screamed with how much breath he still had in his throat, but he could not have said how the other could have opened a gap and saved himself.

He felt a strong blow on his head and lost his senses.

When he slowly regained consciousness, he found himself tied up on the ground and with his back to the wall, as well as Shinsuke by his side, on what he assumed to be the airship that was landing before he fainted.

"Are you awake, Takasugi?" He asked in a whisper.

All he got in response was a grunt, and Katsura made that answer enough.

_ At least he was alive and conscious. _

Without being noticed by the torturers, he tried to move his arms, in an attempt to make them slip, gain space and free himself with the intention of somehow unravelling the knots that kept him and the Kihetai Commander tied, but all he got was the burning pain caused by the abrasion of bamboo ropes on the skin.

He sighed resignedly, resting his head on his friend's shoulder, who tilted his head in his direction and Katsura felt his cold cheek brush against his head.

"I'm afraid we can’t warm up near the fire with Gintoki today..."

Two years earlier, he had been stopped by him to commit harakiri to avoid falling into enemy hands, urged instead to live a glorious life instead of ending it honourably, and now...

_ 'Neither one thing nor the other is possible .' _

A strong rumble followed by a sharp jolt warned them that they had landed and broke the contact, pushing their busts forward.

The door opened and the light filtered through it, while a group of jailers tried to force them to get up, but they proudly stood on their own, holding on to their unsteady legs.

The dawn had just passed, the sky was grey by the clouds and the barren landscape showed a scenery not too different from what Shinsuke and he had left behind the night before.

Katsura understood, and probably also Takasugi, that it was the place where Gintoki had led his troops, and looked for him with his eyes, but there was no trace of him.

They walked up a promontory, with exhausted limbs and the pointed part of the shakujou against their backs, and both of them froze on the spot when, reached the top, they recognized the figure of Shouyou-sensei. His long, ash-blond hair concealed only part of the ropes that bound him as they were.

The two were badly pushed forward and slammed their chest against the ground; the monks threw their swords at their feet.

They kept their eyes fixed on the man, whom they had for so long tried to save, for whom they had fought so much by going to war.

Now, after years of hard struggle, they had finally come to him but how could they save him? And where was Gintoki?

_'Isn’t he...?'_. His own mind refused to continue the thought.

"Will your students choose to die in vain with you, or instead..." the Amanto near Shouyou began to say, while behind the two young men someone moved steps "Will they decide to live, even at the cost of killing their teacher with their own hands? "

Both boys on the ground turned their gaze at their backs, meeting the shape of Gintoki.

Shiroyasha was standing behind them, a white robe and silver blood-soaked hair and an unsheathed katana.

His red eyes, blank and apparently staring into space, contrasted sharply with theirs, which were staring at him with their wide-opened.

"Do not you think this is the perfect execution for an educator like you?" Amanto said to Shouyou, before turning to Gintoki.

“ Choose what you prefer, your teacher or your friends.” 

Katsura shuddered, waiting, and at the moment when the companion took a step forward their heads, he understood what was the difficult decision he had made.

Takasugi had done the same, started screaming and intimidating him - begging him - to stop.

Kotarou strongly bit the inside of his lip, realizing that he would make the same choice, and he would not stop too, yet he wished not to see, nor hear the other screaming, but his gaze was fixed against his own will and his bound hands could not plug the ears.

In a few moments, Gintoki's katana had chopped off the sensei's head and what seemed to be the chief of the monks had closed forever Shinsuke’s left eye, thrown with a cry against his companion.

_ It was over. They had lost the war, the glory, the sensei and themselves. Everything. _

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> I hope it is clear that I don't think of Zura as a “pure” masochist, nor 'Sugi as a pure sadist. Zura in particular, I think he's a switch. ~~"Switch janai, Katsura da!"~~  
>  Anyway I think they _could_ have been together (obviously in canon they didn't but) in some time during the 10-years-gap until Benizakura, ups and downs, back and forth (obviously in the pre-Benizakura already down and forth, at loggerheads). Maybe even spending months or years separated ways in the middle. You know, the leaders of the two biggest and most dangerous Joui terrorists, their faction probably ~~collaborated~~ used each other.  
> Never forget Katsura was pretty ruthless and didn't mind having bodies on his hands before he run into Gintoki again.  
> I can totally see them meeting in that period, Zura scolding him because he takes too risks, discussing of politics and bickering over silly things.  
>  ~~That is Zura bickering at Shinsuke's back because he already turned his tail, fed up.~~
> 
> I was ~~saying~~ writing, ten years. And this is set at the very beginning, when they probably were still wrecked, frail, a total mess because of the trauma they had both recently experienced. They only express that in total different ways. Obviously I think they became more stable. More or less, they still are a mess in a way or another. And the couple dynamics as well. ~~And maybe don't use sex to heal the soul's pain.~~  
>  In other words... It's a phase.  
> Anyway 'Sugi is the dominant sadist only because Zura lets and ultimately _wants_ him to be it. And _Shinsuke knows it._ Even if unstable and challenging, he goes near the cliff edge, but never walks that thin line. Here they are giving each other what the other needs and taking what he himself wants. It's a delicate balance of give and take.  
> Still, this is my view on the pairing, and I think every vision is licit since obv Gorilla mangaka didn't say it in canon ~~(but when Gintoki saw Katsura's short hair at the end of Benizakura affair, asked him if he got dumped).~~
> 
> The final "I know" Zura says could be interpreted as a simple, plain 'I know I talk like and expert'/'You're okay being the only of your kind', or 'I lied, I have a beast'. The latter could mean either 'You are my beast' or 'Things happening in my mind, ptsd and everything that goes with it is my beast'. Or even a mix of them. It's up to your interpretation! 
> 
> Sorry for the long notes, but I didn't want it to be misunderstood.
> 
> I'd end it here, there would be a third part but... I'm not fully satisfied of it. 
> 
> Kudos and comments are always appreciated~ ♡


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